Gotta make a plan
Gotta do what's right
Can't run around in circles
If you wanna build a life
But I don't wanna make a plan
For a day far away
While I'm young and while I'm able
All I wanna do is...
- Green Day, "J.A.R."
I've written before about how I discovered punk, and my own prosaic experience very much mirrors what Kevin Prested describes in the foreword to Punk USA: The Rise and Fall of Lookout Records:
Green Day and Lookout offered something much more than just sound: they opened an accessible avenue into underground music...Lookout's presentation implied a participatory culture, something young people across the world craved, starting bands of their own inspired by this democratic aesthetic. Looking at many of their products, it felt like you could probably make a record too. And while Green Day was mainstream, Lookout was not, so it felt like you had discovered something special that was your own. A new wave of punk was born.
Mainstream outlets like the New York Times scoffed at Green Day. Here, they sneered, is the end result of the Revolution of '77: punk rock as food court wallpaper, sung by some twerp on MTV in a fake English accent.* To such cynical observers, Green Day were Fisher Price punk, wholly inappropriate as a soundtrack to canonical punk activities like participating in Situationist street theater or nodding off at the Chelsea.
But Green Day, like Black Flag and Minor Threat before them, opened up a new world of possibilities for kids outside of the hip bohemian neighborhoods where punk germinated. Some of them would grow out of it (like Filth said, the list is thousands long), but for others—such as yours truly—it would be a life-changing initiation, the effects of which would endure long after they shed their leather jackets and mohawks.
(Even for the punk diehards who attended volunteer meetings at Gilman and moshed to Neurosis, Green Day proved tough to resist. The Copyrights, a band more than a little reminiscent of classic Lookout, put it best: "Made excuses to not like Green Day / But we wore the tape out anyway / What our friends don't know won't hurt them / Of course they were doing the same thing.")
Punk USA is also about much more than just Green Day. Their success does cast a shadow over the whole book—it was their decision to take back control of their records from Lookout in 2005 marked the beginning of the end for the label—but Prested covers the whole spectrum of Lookout acts, from Crimpshrine to Avail to The Donnas, with ample space for lesser-known bands like Nuisance and Brent's TV.
Books like this depend heavily on who the author gets access to, and Prested succeeds in getting many important people to open up. Scene fixtures like Jesse Townley and Joe King contribute, as does a certain beloved Italian-American audio engineer who helped define the sound of an era—I speak, of course, of Mass Giorgini. There are some notable (but unsurprising) omissions: Green Day don't talk, and Ben Weasel's absence is keenly felt.
But the book's central character is Chris Appelgren, the protégé of Larry Livermore who took over running the label after his mentor stepped down. Appelgren is often called "the Nero of Lookout" for his role in running the label into the ground, and perhaps appropriately, the book contains more testimony from him than any other participant.
The book's second half settles into a comfortable rhythm: band members explain their grievances with the label and Appelgren, and he responds. To his credit, Appelgren conducts himself with an impressive amount of grace and humility, probably owing to his familiarity with being a target. He presents his perspective without making excuses or casting blame, and he owns his own failures.
The Lookout story proves a familiar one for indie music fans: a small scene built on personal relationship and shared aesthetics becomes the focus of global attention, forcing the participants onto a larger stage where much greater sums of money are at stake. Unlike some such stories, most everyone in the Lookout saga acquits themselves well: there are falling outs and grudges, but this is a story with few outright villains (although some involved would likely disagree).
The book's subtitle is apt, but this isn't Scarface; the theme of the story isn't so much Icarus soaring too close to the sun, but the timeless dictum that money changes everything.
Along the way there are great anecdotes, like original Green Day drummer and future millionaire John Kiffmyer (aka Al Sobrante) selling T-shirts accusing Samiam of selling out in front of Gilman, or Furious George peeing through the mail slot at the Lookout offices. (There are even pictures of the latter defilement.) And there are interesting factoids, like how it was Green Day, of all bands, that introduced Larry Livermore to infamous NY shit-stirrers Born Against.
Prested is an able researcher, with a journalist's keen eye for the telling detail or interview bon mot, but I can't help but feel that the book might've benefited from another layer or two of editorial polish. The prose is often workmanlike, if not awkward—e.g. when Lookout co-founder David Hayes is described as looking through "negative-tinted glasses"—and there are a number of unfortunate typos in the final manuscript. But Prested is a capable writer, and sometimes his prose really sings: he describes the songs on 1000 Hours as "teen punk heaven yearning to be loved", and aptly characterizes The Queers' Love Songs For The Retarded as "almost painfully heterosexual."
Punk USA may not be the greatest of all punk chronicles, or even the best book on Bay Area punk. But it is a wonderful document of a label that meant a great deal to a whole generation of punx, and a potent reminder of how transformative DIY music can be. If you've ever sung along to "Ursula Finally Has Tits" or worked out the chords to "Knowledge", you owe it to yourself to check it out.
* Re: Billie Joe Armstrong's supposed English accent, I've always thought this was a trite and largely fanciful observation. Billie Joe has always sounded like a snotty, good-natured kid from California—no more, no less. And Tim Armstrong, the other Bay Area icon often accused of putting English on it, seems to shift inflections from song to song, coming off less like an Anglophile than a method actor: De Niro with a mohawk. And it goes without saying that the whole idea of punk being essentially English is really only believed by idiot posers (like the staff of the New York Times). Early Rancid sounds more like Econochrist than The Clash!
(Even for the punk diehards who attended volunteer meetings at Gilman and moshed to Neurosis, Green Day proved tough to resist. The Copyrights, a band more than a little reminiscent of classic Lookout, put it best: "Made excuses to not like Green Day / But we wore the tape out anyway / What our friends don't know won't hurt them / Of course they were doing the same thing.")
Punk USA is also about much more than just Green Day. Their success does cast a shadow over the whole book—it was their decision to take back control of their records from Lookout in 2005 marked the beginning of the end for the label—but Prested covers the whole spectrum of Lookout acts, from Crimpshrine to Avail to The Donnas, with ample space for lesser-known bands like Nuisance and Brent's TV.
Books like this depend heavily on who the author gets access to, and Prested succeeds in getting many important people to open up. Scene fixtures like Jesse Townley and Joe King contribute, as does a certain beloved Italian-American audio engineer who helped define the sound of an era—I speak, of course, of Mass Giorgini. There are some notable (but unsurprising) omissions: Green Day don't talk, and Ben Weasel's absence is keenly felt.
But the book's central character is Chris Appelgren, the protégé of Larry Livermore who took over running the label after his mentor stepped down. Appelgren is often called "the Nero of Lookout" for his role in running the label into the ground, and perhaps appropriately, the book contains more testimony from him than any other participant.
The book's second half settles into a comfortable rhythm: band members explain their grievances with the label and Appelgren, and he responds. To his credit, Appelgren conducts himself with an impressive amount of grace and humility, probably owing to his familiarity with being a target. He presents his perspective without making excuses or casting blame, and he owns his own failures.
The Lookout story proves a familiar one for indie music fans: a small scene built on personal relationship and shared aesthetics becomes the focus of global attention, forcing the participants onto a larger stage where much greater sums of money are at stake. Unlike some such stories, most everyone in the Lookout saga acquits themselves well: there are falling outs and grudges, but this is a story with few outright villains (although some involved would likely disagree).
The book's subtitle is apt, but this isn't Scarface; the theme of the story isn't so much Icarus soaring too close to the sun, but the timeless dictum that money changes everything.
Along the way there are great anecdotes, like original Green Day drummer and future millionaire John Kiffmyer (aka Al Sobrante) selling T-shirts accusing Samiam of selling out in front of Gilman, or Furious George peeing through the mail slot at the Lookout offices. (There are even pictures of the latter defilement.) And there are interesting factoids, like how it was Green Day, of all bands, that introduced Larry Livermore to infamous NY shit-stirrers Born Against.
Prested is an able researcher, with a journalist's keen eye for the telling detail or interview bon mot, but I can't help but feel that the book might've benefited from another layer or two of editorial polish. The prose is often workmanlike, if not awkward—e.g. when Lookout co-founder David Hayes is described as looking through "negative-tinted glasses"—and there are a number of unfortunate typos in the final manuscript. But Prested is a capable writer, and sometimes his prose really sings: he describes the songs on 1000 Hours as "teen punk heaven yearning to be loved", and aptly characterizes The Queers' Love Songs For The Retarded as "almost painfully heterosexual."
Punk USA may not be the greatest of all punk chronicles, or even the best book on Bay Area punk. But it is a wonderful document of a label that meant a great deal to a whole generation of punx, and a potent reminder of how transformative DIY music can be. If you've ever sung along to "Ursula Finally Has Tits" or worked out the chords to "Knowledge", you owe it to yourself to check it out.
* Re: Billie Joe Armstrong's supposed English accent, I've always thought this was a trite and largely fanciful observation. Billie Joe has always sounded like a snotty, good-natured kid from California—no more, no less. And Tim Armstrong, the other Bay Area icon often accused of putting English on it, seems to shift inflections from song to song, coming off less like an Anglophile than a method actor: De Niro with a mohawk. And it goes without saying that the whole idea of punk being essentially English is really only believed by idiot posers (like the staff of the New York Times). Early Rancid sounds more like Econochrist than The Clash!
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